Obituary of Marguerite Mary Reinhart

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Marguerite Mary Reinhart (nee Bowman/Bauman)

Marg passed away peacefully on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, at St. Mary’s General Hospital, Kitchener, Ont. at age 90.

Marg is survived by her six children and their partners, David (Diane, 2021), Michael (Lin), Gregory (Dana), Nancy (Stephen), Thomas (Yasmine) and Anthony (Tenille); 11 grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and four step-great-grandchildren. Predeceased by her former husband, Francis (Don) Reinhart (2022); parents Alfred and Rose Bowman; brothers Bob, Gilbert, Jerry, Ron, Roy, Vince, Alan and Paul Bowman (in infancy); and sisters Kathy Haller, Rosemary Morgan, Audrey Colon and Paula Fogelklou.

Born on the family farm near Winterbourne, Ont., on June 19, 1932, Marg was a child of the Great Depression and Second World War who learned early the values of hard work, frugality and self-reliance. She rode on a horse-drawn sleigh to S.S. #28, a one-room schoolhouse near Maryhill, did daily chores from early childhood and moved to Kitchener by herself to attend St. Mary’s High School, living with a local family and working for her board.

Marg dreamt of being a teacher, but, short of money and in need of new clothes, she left high school to work for Jack Armbrust, an accountant who taught her bookkeeping – a skill that would serve her well later in life. She married in 1952 and spent the next 20 years raising her family, baking and sewing for herself and others before returning to the paid workforce, which enabled her to help her children through school. She held bookkeeping jobs at the Kitchener-Waterloo YWCA and Reliable Construction before joining Barney Strassburger’s Twins Drive-In, a southern Ontario conglomerate of fast-food franchises, in 1978. She soon rose to the position of office manager for the growing, multimillion-dollar enterprise, where she led a team of nearly 20, and retired in 1998.

A committed Roman Catholic who believed in service to others, Marg was active in the Catholic Women’s League at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Kitchener, where she helped with fundraising card parties, bazaars and funeral receptions. In her early 80s, she helped cook for the church-based Out of the Cold program for unhoused people. And she volunteered at St. Mary’s Hospital well into her late 80s, supporting various fundraising activities. An engaged and aware citizen, Marg was also a member of the Kitchener-Heritage Probus Club, which hosts talks on topical subjects.

In her latter working years and into retirement, Marg enjoyed spending time playing, tobogganing, baking, sewing and making crafts with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Throughout her life she loved to play cards, read historical fiction and travel, logging numerous trips to Western Canada, the U.S., the British Isles and Europe. She also enjoyed walks in Kitchener’s Lakeside Park and road trips in southern Ontario, which became more frequent after she learned to drive in her mid-40s and bought herself a brand-new, pumpkin-orange, 1977 Chevy Nova.

Marg’s family is grateful to the staff at St. Mary’s Hospital for making her final hours comfortable, and to the staff at Lanark Village Seniors Living, where she lived since late 2019.

Cremation has taken place. Friends and family are welcome to attend a visitation at the Erb & Good Family Funeral Home, 171 King St. S., Waterloo on Saturday, March 18, 2023 from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. A memorial service will be held in the chapel of the funeral home at 1 p.m., followed by a reception in the Fireside Reception Room. Those unable to attend can view Marg’s service via the live stream link at erbgood.com.

As expressions of sympathy, donations to the St. Mary’s General Hospital Foundation or St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Kitchener would be appreciated and may be arranged by contacting the funeral home at www.erbgood.com

Marg finished her brief memoir, written by hand in 2013, with these words: “I would say: I had a good & interesting life!!”